Nikki Haley abandons the ship before it sinks

U.S. President Donald Trump greets the UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, during the meeting held in the White House Oval Office on October 9, 2018. Trump confirmed that Haley will leave office at the end of the year, a decision that, according to the president himself, was communicated several months ago. EFE/Michael Reynolds.

After the disaster of the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the resignation of one of the high officials of the Trump administration can only be a bad omen before the midterm elections.

When it comes to politics, it’s difficult to discern between coincidences and consequences.

After the events of the last few weeks - between the laughter of the UN General Assembly, the chaos following the separation of families, and the irremediable fracture of the Senate during the nomination process of Brett Kavanaugh - Donald Trump's government seems to be unable to contain everything that has been unleashed.

On Tuesday morning, Axios reported that the Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, had resigned her post, a decision that had been unknown to Haley's superiors.

Although the media later reported that Haley "had discussed her resignation with Trump last week," the news "shocked a number of senior foreign policy officials in the Trump Administration," that is, national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Although Haley and the president went with smiles to the media to assure that the resignation had been on good terms and by the ambassador's decision to "close a cycle", theories and speculations soon arose, especially for Haley’s apparent good relationship with the president and with the GOP in general.

As CNN explains, "the fact that neither Bolton nor Pompeo had any inkling that Haley was preparing to resign casts some doubt on the this-was-all-apart-of-the-plan explanation.”

For the media outlet, "losing an Indian-American woman four weeks before an election and on the heels of a very contentious Supreme Court fight that divided deeply along gender lines suggests is far less than ideal timing for Trump."

Haley for her part thanked the president in her letter of resignation for being "free to speak my mind on the issues of the day" and listed the "achievements" in international policy of the administration during the last two years - including measures against Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and even Russia, according to the Washington Post.

Although her resignation will be effective in January 2019, the magnitude of her announcement will only aggravate the current political situation.

Just one day before her resignation, the ethics research organization Citizens for Ethics published a statement in which it demanded an investigation against the ambassador "to determine if she complied with ethics regulations when she accepted seven free flights for herself and for her husband on luxury private aircraft from three South Carolina businessmen."

The organization stated that "federal ethics regulations prohibit employees from soliciting or accepting gifts given because of the employee’s official position,” an argument that was sufficient to subject New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez to national scrutiny a couple years ago, and that cost the Secretary of Health and Human Services of the Trump administration, Tom Price, his job.

In addition to this, recent polls have determined that, in the run-up to the mid-term elections, "209 seats are either firmly or leaning in the Democratic column - only 9 shy of the 218 needed" for the Blue Wave to be a reality, as Politico reported.

For Politico, this is a symbol of "collapse" of the White House party, "with Democrats steadily gaining ground toward erasing the 23-seat margin and ending eight years of GOP control.”

So, while the GOP insists on giving in to the presidential tantrums, its political stability is hit with surprises that seem to be the order of the day.